


Sympathy Points

by Birdbitch



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Contemporary Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 11:46:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3118979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Birdbitch/pseuds/Birdbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Feeling the pain of others can really take a lot out of a person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sympathy Points

Dionysus opened his mouth first to speak but then, thinking better of it, drank instead. The whiskey sank to the pit of his stomach and while he normally would have chosen something else, he found that the weight of the liquor was satisfying in an entirely different way and he like the heat that seemed to curl and uncurl in his belly. It felt a lot like it would end up being an early night back to the apartment he currently called home (resting on a mattress without a bedframe and staring at the white noise and static snow of the television screen trying to recall a voice from the Chaos before passing out piss drunk) until he turned his head and caught Eros coming out of the bathroom.

No, apparently. Not an early night. He walked away from the bar and towards the older god, trying his best not to look too eager for anything. “You ever fall in love with a one night stand?” he asked, cocking his hip and going for a suaveness he left behind on his third drink. Eros stared at him through a curl of hair, eyes almost appearing red-rimmed in the light of the place.

“Since when were you ever a one night stand?” he asked in reply before tucking his hands into his pockets and pushing past him. “I was just leaving.”

“Work done?”

“Never. Just don’t want to be here.”

Dionysus longed for the days where Eros would wear his wings obviously, instead of hidden and small underneath a $148 cardigan. He dressed smarter now, Dionysus guessed, with a keen sartorial mind, but then, Hermes had gotten them all into the mindset that they should look good. Dionysus preferred found goods and a tailor. They all had the means. It didn’t matter though—in the long run, even under the clothing Dionysus could tell where the wings would jut out under his shoulder blades, strong and beautiful as ever before. In a similar way, he missed his horns.

He set the drink—what was left of it, anyways—back on the bar, dropped enough bills to cover his tab, and followed Eros out of the bar and into the fresh night air of the city. “I’ve missed you,” he said, and Eros shrugged his shoulders and made his way down into the subway station, where it became apparent that the red rings around his eyes were really, in fact, there, and his cheeks were red in a way that seemed like he had been crying. Dionysus couldn’t do with that, but then, they were already gone from the place and there was little he could do about it now. “I mean it,” he said.

“I don’t really feel like talking,” he replied.

They got on the train together, and Eros gravitated closer to Dionysus as he always seemed to do regardless of whether he actively wanted to or not. ‘We compliment each other,’ Dionysus had said once. ‘We work well together.’ Not so much now, maybe, but at the time and other times, it was the truth. Besides, Dionysus was a charismatic person, regardless of the face he decided to wear, and Eros had always been fond of the bearded face that he had picked up again as of late.

Eros glanced at two people, who then glanced at each other and Dionysus could see the shared look in their face as they fell in love. That was something he always liked—the idea of two strangers falling in love, even for just a few minutes while standing on the train, and he wanted to think that Eros had remembered him mentioning it and made it happen. Nothing special would come out of it, but it was a nice moment, a fleeting kind of emotion that made him feel warm in his chest the same way that whiskey he had was still making him warm in his stomach.

But then Eros looked at the floor and one of the strangers got off of the train and the moment was gone and instead, it became a little obvious that something was wrong and Eros wouldn’t actually cry in public, but he looked close to doing it. “My stop’s next,” Dionysus said. “Come with me.”

He didn’t argue when Dionysus helped him to his feet, and he didn’t mind the arm around his shoulder when Dionysus needed steadying himself. The apartment came up sooner than Dionysus remembered it being, but he accepted it and led Eros inside.

“They’re really fragile, aren’t they?” Eros asked when they got up to Dionysus’ own room. He sat down on the mattress on the floor and stared up at the hanging light fixture. “People.”

“That’s why I love them.” Dionysus rummaged around in his cabinet for another bottle of alcohol and took a swig for himself before handing it to Eros. “It’s temporary, you know, and some of them know it better than we do. I love humans.” Eros took the bottle and drank. “I think you did, too.”

Eros cried, then, a little. “I forgot that sometimes their hurt is worse than anything I’ve ever felt. There’s a real cruelty in being left without the person you love.”

He cried again, and Dionysus put his hand on his shoulder and pulled him in close. “We both know that.” He kissed the older god’s temple and squeezed him in a comforting gesture. “Don’t forget that you’ve lost, too. And you loved again, and lost again.” Eros put a hand on Dionysus’ chest before tugging at his shirt and pulling him closer.

“Their pain hurts so much.”

“And it’s our job to help.” Dionysus took the chance to kiss him, chastely and gently at the corner of his mouth, and Eros kissed back, unable to do anything else. “You were trying, weren’t you?”

“Someone—a work friend, I guess—set her up on a blind date and she was so scared and then so sad because they looked the same and I wanted—I wanted to make it easier, but I don’t—you can’t. It’s never any easier. Not for any of them.” Eros took in a deep breath and his hand remained clenched in Dionysus’s shirt.

“So you took on some of the pain yourself.”

“I had to.”

Looking down at Eros, Dionysus knew what he was saying, and he understood. He had done the same thing plenty of times before with devastated people who had nowhere else to turn. It explained why he had gone to the bathroom, why he emerged with the red-rimmed eyes and the reluctance to speak. All he had to do was brush a hand on this girl’s shoulder and she had a more optimistic outlook on this potential date with someone who looked exactly like her dead ex-lover, while Eros tried not to be overwhelmed by feelings of loss and hesitation and sadness.

“I’m here,” Dionysus said, keeping his voice soft.

Normally things between them ended up savage in an erotic way, wild and uninhibited and rough and raw. He had thought about it briefly when he first saw Eros that night, knowing that whatever it was the other god wanted, he wouldn’t back away. Tonight wasn’t a night either of them needed that. If asked, Dionysus would probably use whiskey dick as an excuse, but in reality, he was sensitive enough to know what it was Eros needed, and the kind of primordial fucking their encounters usually ended up with wasn’t it.

He kissed Eros again, and again, and again, and when he stopped kissing, Eros followed for more. “I meant it when I said I missed you,” he whispered, and Eros looked at him with big, sad eyes.

“I know,” he answered. He kissed Dionysus’ cheek and curled up beside him, head resting on his chest and eyes trained on the blank television screen. He reached for the remote control and turned on some fuzzy basic cable channel, and leaned into the touch of Dionysus’ hand on his back. “I’m sorry.”


End file.
